He hesitated. Would it sear him? Holding his palm over the backbone, he could feel heat rolling off the skin. The creature seemed to flinch from the shadow of his hand. The ruby eyes swiveled in its head, looking up apprehensively. He dragged over a chair and waited for more of its warmth to be leached by the cold marble. The salamander played dead, eyes narrowing to slits. After some time had passed, he tested a pad with his fingernail but judged it still unsafe to touch. The skin twitched.
Hadn’t he fired the furnace for seven days and seven nights — despite the fact that part of him was sure the idea was mad — in order to anoint his hands with the blood of the salamander?
He hoped that it could not feel pain.
The shears seemed too large and threatening, so in the end he used a pair of sharp tweezers to pierce the delicate hide. Though the salamander appeared to have neither heart nor veins, rosy juice spilled across the marble.
Xan washed his hands in the hot liquid. It steamed but cooled quickly on the stone. He tore off his shirt and smeared blood on his arms and neck and chest. A surprising amount remained, so he stripped naked and anointed every inch of his body, even the soles of his feet. Soaked to the roots, his hair was stiff with the life of the salamander. He splashed blood in his eyes until the room seemed rinsed red. A Fra Angelico portrait of the crucified Christ — the eyes two pools of vermilion staring at forever — glanced through his mind.
The little being drooped, its lids almost closed.
“I’ve killed it.” Why had he hurt the thing — was it so important to be immune to fire? He had gone twenty-four years without such a gift. What nonsense to fantasize that blood could protect! The whole business seemed a madness born from lack of sleep.
With tweezers, he slowly pinched shut the gaping hole. The head wavered, as if to look up.
Need to sleep pressed down on his shoulders. Closing watery eyes, Xan stood as still as one of his own vessels. He appeared to have been sprinkled with sadness.
“What should I do?” The words fell from his mouth, startling him.
Forgetting the risk, he cupped the salamander in both hands and found the skin had cooled. He was so spent, any idea that the blood had already worked its magic did not occur to him.
Drenched by pity and hot grief, he impulsively lifted the creature to his cheek and held it there. In his weariness, tidal feelings seemed liable to wreck him. From a distance came a sound like a thousand windblown bells.
“Glass would crack. I wonder if you will. Maybe you’ll be nothing but morsels of frit in the morning.”
He reeled, shivering, his body wanting nothing but to lie prone. But there were the soft pads, tacky against his flesh. Using the pastorale, he slipped the salamander onto the coals. The cooling glory hole might be right to help in healing.
It lay without moving in the oven.
“Let it live.” His mouth could hardly form the words.
Sleep slammed against the naked man. He pulled on his pants, staggered forward, and collapsed onto the daybed. Like a stone shot from a sling, he plunged into the deep.
He woke to Fritsy’s damp nose pushing against his neck, her breath whiffling — evidently he smelled interesting. A tongue rasped against his jaw. Rolling onto his side, Xan groaned. She settled on his ribs, purring and kneading her paws.
“Out.” When he flailed an arm, the cat arrowed from the bed. He cracked open an eyelid; it was daylight, though earlier than before — he must have slept for a day and a night. The glory hole had come open. Closing his eyes, he tried to dive back into sleep, but an image of the door ajar kept niggling at him.
“All right,” he exclaimed, setting his feet on the cold stone and rubbing his face. When he felt his hair, clumped and stiff, he remembered.
Alarm flashed through him; a sheet of spun glass, coppery in color, hung from the ledge. He coaxed the door open the rest of the way, standing several feet back.
Cramped in the glory hole was a naked girl, who now opened her eyes and stared at him with eyes the color of pennies. She pushed herself up on one extraordinarily pale arm.
He knew; knew instantly. He didn’t have to ask who or how and wasted no time in doing so. Her oval face was ruddy on the upper cheeks, where freckles like bits of copper seemed to float. The rest of the skin was fair and so translucent that he could see the blue veins in her neck. A great eagerness seized him. Would she have a tail and legs with pads or be human in appearance? Reaching for her hands, he helped her from the glory hole. She gave off an attractive odor of burned myrrh and cinnamon and proved to be without tail and completely human in limbs. A faint silvery sheen lay in hollows around her collarbone, at her temples, and on her eyelids. Her body was perfectly formed and as smooth as glass. Suffice to say that there were portions of her more beautiful than any seen since Eve walked in the garden, as innocent and bare as the dawn. Xan, a well-built specimen of the male mortal, felt coarse and unfinished next to her.
“Can you speak? Do you have a name?”
She didn’t answer. The gaffer shut his eyes, opened them again. Still there: she wasn’t a dream; he was wide awake. Joy cut through him straight to the heart. He had never imagined a woman so mysterious and lovely, and he could have stared at her for hours had it not occurred to him that nakedness was no longer the natural state of Eve’s children. He jerked the rod from the window and slid the curtain away. She seemed not to know what he meant by this offering, so he began to wind the cloth around her, his hands trembling. Tucked into place, the fabric made a passable sarong.
Taking her hands once more, he stared into her eyes, wondering at the fine crackled lines — bright gold and pumpkin had infiltrated the iris. She didn’t seem to mind his attention and soon leaned against him in a way that suggested trust. He didn’t mean to kiss her, but he did and not just once. She was a quick learner, pressing against him as eagerly as he against her.
“Xan! Xan!”
The voice called, a world away. Slowly he drew back from the girl, yet not so far that — being mesmerized by its sparkle — he couldn’t comb his fingers through the spun threads of her hair.
He turned to see Garland at the screen door.
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be! Come in, please.” Xan was glad, because who else in all the known universe could understand what had happened?
The girl looked from his face to Garland in surprise. Perhaps she had thought him the only such being in the world.
“This is my friend,” he told her.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt. Just dropped by to pick up S to T. You’re a bit of a mess, aren’t you?” Garland laughed, surveying him. The farmer held out his hand to the young woman, introducing himself, and she took it between her own and began scrutinizing the green-stained nails and the dark hair at the wrists. Clearly he admired her and had politely failed to notice that her spring attire was somewhat lacking.
“A mess? It’s nothing, just the blood. This is—”
Xan hesitated, unsure how to explain, but the other man simply smiled at the girl’s odd behavior and tweaked her nose, as though she were one of his own daughters. “The salamander.”
“What?” Garland tilted his head.
“I made it. The salamander. Well, I didn’t make — it appeared. Not like this but like a newt. And I punctured its side and blood spurted out, the way the book said. See, look at the marble—”
Garland’s lips had parted, as if to drink in the news.